Why do the bulk of modern MMO players want their games so easy?

borghive49

I'm curious as to why we have seen a huge surge in this type of player over the years? I'm not talking about people's lack of time, and games designed to be played in chunks either, because I think you can have challenging game play in small bursts. I'm referring to the bulk of MMOs these days that are designed from the ground up to just to be a faceroll in order to cater to this type of gamer. I'm not trying to be mean here, I'm just genuinely curious as to why people like content to be this easy? 

Distopia

To save all the keyboards of course. Damn those bleeding hearts...

maskedweasel

I think its tougher to do "challenging" in an MMO because you still have to make it accessible if you want to cater to the largest audience.  

Mostly they gate "challenging" content around "gear" these days.  The content itself isn't tough, if you spend the hundreds or whatever of hours getting the right gear.  

I would love to see more challenging content, but, if I want something really challenging, it's not going to be in an MMO.

Distopia

Just to clarify my post was half joke half serious. As it really boils down to that. Frustration. My wife as an example won't play anything that pisses her off. Her reasoning? She doesn't want to spend her "fun time" being pissed off. Which I can understand that. She's the quintessential average gamer IMO. She plays a lot of games, but always on easy. Story mode if available (Mass Effect 3) which is even easier than easy mode... 

As far as MMO's go (at least mass market entries). They're aiming for the highest common denominator. That's not a place where you'll find too much focus on the niches that like hard content. 

Distopia

SedrynTyros said:

Distopia said:

Just to clarify my post was half joke half serious. As it really boils down to that. Frustration. My wife as an example won't play anything that pisses her off. Her reasoning? She doesn't want to spend her "fun time" being pissed off. Which I can understand that. She's the quintessential average gamer IMO. She plays a lot of games, but always on easy. Story mode if available (Mass Effect 3) which is even easier than easy mode... 

As far as MMO's go (at least mass market entries). They're aiming for the highest common denominator. That's not a place where you'll find too much focus on the niches that like hard content. 

But wouldn't it be nice if the games included at least one "hard" server so that people who like a challenge would have a place to go that didn't put them to sleep?

Sure, I guess that falls to the reality of balancing different rulesets though. In a genre where they have a hard time balancing one. Not making excuses, that's just a guess as to the why we don't see that.

FlyByKnight

They need to add a [ Conjecture ] button on MMORPG.

Quizzical

It's not so much that players want games to be easy as that players want not to get completely stuck and give up.  If a game has 1000 quests that you have to do in order, and 999 of them are stupidly easy, and one random one is insanely hard, people get stuck on the one, give up, and quit the game.  So game developers often err in the direction of making a game too easy rather than too hard to avoid that.

Kajidourden

"challenging" is not the same as punishing.  

Example:  Ninja Gaiden is very difficult, but when you die you restart within a reasonable distance from where you died.

In a lot of the early mmos you died and could lose everything.  Multiple levels, gear, etc.  That's highly inconvenient and annoying, not hard.

Distopia

Aori said:

When has an MMO ever been hard? They've always been time sinks over challenge, sure you could challenge yourself and do things you shouldn't be but that wasn't by design.

For the most part you're correct.

ApexTKM

I almost made an assumption about people having less time to play games but challenging gameplay in small bursts is reasonable I guess. But when you say "bulk" I'm thinking your saying like 90 percent of mmo players want their games easy which is something I'll have to disagree with. Theres a good amount of people that enjoy learning curves in games.

ChicagoCub

Because difficulty results in differences which results in jealousy.  Making games easy is the MMO version of everybody wins and everybody gets a prize just for showing up.

Loke666

Well, all games have become that easy. It started somewhere between Diablo and Diablo 2 when regular people who did't use to game got PC to get the internet. They were a huge influx of people and the devs started to cater to them very quickly.

But I am not so sure it is so popular anymore, most of those people have moved to mobile games by now and the devs seems to stay on the really easy difficulty by default.

I think it is time to raise the difficulty again, but it will probably be a slow process. People who weren't there in the 90s and 80s have no idea how much harder the games were and going straight back would probably mean many will ragequit. Those people are still gamers though so if they raise it slowly I think they will enjoy the challenge as well.

Many older gamers here tend to think that younger gamers are lazy and stupid but I don't agree. 

If the PC games continues to trying for the gamers that are moving away from the PC (and just look on any report on how fast mobile gaming is increasing and have for the last few years) they are making a big mistake. 

And nothing against casual gamers but they are leaving the ship. In a not too far future will once again PC users be dominated by gaming geeks (yeah, one of them and proud of it) and people working in offices. And if the devs can't make games we like they will go out of business sooner or later.

At least that is my theory, but it might of course just be wishful thinking.

esc-joconnor

borghive49 said:

I'm curious as to why we have seen a huge surge in this type of player over the years? I'm not talking about people's lack of time, and games designed to be played in chunks either, because I think you can have challenging game play in small bursts. I'm referring to the bulk of MMOs these days that are designed from the ground up to just to be a faceroll in order to cater to this type of gamer. I'm not trying to be mean here, I'm just genuinely curious as to why people like content to be this easy? 

Who says this is prevalent? Most of the recent games you mentioned haven't been very successful. I think games like WoW decided to make the leveling process quicker to let people speed to the endgame, and they are mostly dealing with peoples alts at this point. 

While there are definitely people who like different levels of difficulty I don't believe easy mode is the majority.

Loke666

Nyctelios said:

Let's be real: Just like mainstream book market and mainstream movies the mainstream game market is not made for gamers. That's the issue. 

Certain genres offers niche experience - within the fact that gaming as a hobby is already a small piece of all entertainment products/services you'll find - but the companies don't want "niche numbers", they want to go big, they want to sell big WoW and GTAV numbers.

The same way Hollywood people don't want to sell Antichrist, or sell Jagten, or Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind  - or even sell Birdman. They want to sell Transformers, Fast and Furious... Fucking Titanic.

How can you sell a lot if the people needing your product or service are not that many? Well, you try to sell it to people who don't want your product or service.

They don't want to push limits or offer a genuine experience, they want to cater to a certain group which would not consume your thing other wise while betting that gamers will consume it anyway.

As I said in previous posts: People usually don't game as a hobby because they don't seek challenge as much they seek mindless entertainment, a safe space - and that's not entirely bad thing. Sometimes we are tired, stressed and just want to peace out a bit - and everyone has it's way to do it. The problem is mindless entertainment becoming the standard. And since games are a mid term between challenge and entertainment it becomes easier to dumb down the entire thing rather than properly develop an entry barrier with a good learning curve - eliminating the first that requires heavy tinkering in favor to the later which... memes and pop references?

To be fair can things turn into mainstream. Game of thrones were hardly considered mainstream when the first book came out and the same goes for heavy metal music. Both are mainstream now.

When George Lucas made the first Star wars movie he thought he made something for a small audience, neither he nor the actors got how popular it was until their plane landed in LA for the premier and the saw the crowd (Mark Hamill stated that "there must be someone famous on the plane".

Heck, even computer gaming in general were a small niche industry not that long ago.

But you are certainly right otherwise, most companies makes products they think the majority of the people want. The problem is that they aren't always right what people like.

esc-joconnor

Loke666 said:

But you are certainly right otherwise, most companies makes products they think the majority of the people want. The problem is that they aren't always right what people like.

That I think is the biggest problem in the game industry right now. 

rodingo

Can someone please link all these posts or articles or something to where there are a players wanting their games easy.  I see people bitching all the time about people supposedly wanting easier gameplay.  I also see a lot of people give their theories as if they know the inner psyche of these supposed people who are complaining.  However, I have yet to actually see someone say they want easier games.   Am I the only one who finds these threads odd?

gervaise1

First: do they? I don't believe peoples' desires have changed.

As @maskedweasel said though it is harder to do "challenging". Hence as @Aori said when have they ever been hard? And as @Kajidourden said "challenging" is not the same as punishing.

Padding is no fun; in a book or in a film. Same goes for timesinks in a game.

Early days there were fewer choices; today there are lots. Early online games also offered an opportunity to "connect" with other people; today with Teamspeak and <<insert your choice of social messaging app>> who needs online games to connect?

Which means that games today have to deliver at the fundamental level. They have to entertain. And when they cease to be entertaining people will move on.

You could ask why people want to drive everywhere when once they thought nothing of a 3/10/20 mile/km walk? Answer: they had no choice. Same deal today. Peoples needs and desires (imo) haven'tchanged but the environment in which games operate today has.

Octagon7711

Most mini-maxers find gaming very easy because they've done everything possible for that extra dps.  This allows them to easily go through most PvE content so they want it harder.  The problem is most players don't spent the time needed to mini-max to such levels.  

It's one thing if you're a professional and actually make money playing competitive games, it's another if it's something you do for a few hours a week to mostly hang out with friends and crack jokes.  Then there are players who treat gaming like it's a job for personal reasons.

Tiamat64

I've noticed from playing twitch MMOs like Elsword and Lunia that an MMO based at least in part around difficulty becomes impossible to balance.  This is because those who are skilled at gameplay acquire loot and exp much faster than those who are not skilled at gameplay.  In Elsword's case, this difficulty could be gotten around via the pay-to-win aspect (mostly via gear upgrading) if you had the cash, which was probably intentional, but in Lunia's case where the cash shop only helped a little instead of a lot like Elsword, it eventually led to an insanely drastic gap between who could actually play the end game raids at all, to the point where people started keeping lists and only sticking to other party members they knew were insanely skilled at the game (gear checking was worthless compared to gameplay skill, so the only way to do this was to play with others yourself and keep tabs on who sucked and who was awesome).

While a game based around a community of people keeping track of who's actually good at playing the game might sound kinda cool in some respects, it's not so cool to those lesser skilled people who would get left out of everything, and it's not so cool for the company's bottom line either, which is why Lunia went out of business (despite a last minute ditch attempt to make a lot of the game easier in the end) while Elsword, where you can at least get around the game's difficulty by giving the company tons of money, did not.

And I'm pretty sure most of you people don't want a game based around buying your way through the difficulty.

Those are the most extreme ends of the spectrum of skill-based gaming, I think.  Most MMOs aren't that twitch as either Elsword or Lunia, but it's a good example of how difficulty in general can affect an MMO and lead to the ostracization of some people.  ....or encourage the company to heavily monetize gear upgrading like crazy.

Theocritus

At some point in time gaming went from being challenging to be entertaining.....Players no longer wanted diffuclt, they wanted some horrible voice acting or cutscenes to amuse them.

nate1980

Distopia said:

Just to clarify my post was half joke half serious. As it really boils down to that. Frustration. My wife as an example won't play anything that pisses her off. Her reasoning? She doesn't want to spend her "fun time" being pissed off. Which I can understand that. She's the quintessential average gamer IMO. She plays a lot of games, but always on easy. Story mode if available (Mass Effect 3) which is even easier than easy mode... 

As far as MMO's go (at least mass market entries). They're aiming for the highest common denominator. That's not a place where you'll find too much focus on the niches that like hard content. 

I think because the MMO genre requires ongoing maintenance and has ongoing fixed costs, developers need to have a game that appeals to a large enough audience to cover those costs. So most try to appeal to a large group.

Your leveling content is your story content. It's basically your "story mode" difficulty in a single player game. Most players won't advance past this content and it's usually good enough these days to warrant a box fee and a subscription if combined with all the other events and side activities, such as crafting and housing.

Small group content is for those players looking for a bit more difficulty. It's akin to your "normal mode" difficulty setting.

Extreme modes and Mythic type small group content is like your "hard mode" in a single player games and can only be defeated if players pay attention to mechanics.

Your raids and organized PvP is your hardest mode. 

So it's not that developers are just catering to the majority of gamers wanting an easy time, they're just segmenting their game into parts that are segregated from each other so that players can easily identify and access the content designed specifically for them.

Kyleran

borghive49 said:

I'm curious as to why we have seen a huge surge in this type of player over the years? I'm not talking about people's lack of time, and games designed to be played in chunks either, because I think you can have challenging game play in small bursts. I'm referring to the bulk of MMOs these days that are designed from the ground up to just to be a faceroll in order to cater to this type of gamer. I'm not trying to be mean here, I'm just genuinely curious as to why people like content to be this easy? 

I'm genuinely curious what your definition of challenging content is and why or how people are avoiding it.

What exactly does "face roll" easy mean?

00Gogh00

Two thoughts come to mind:

1. Games exist for entertainment. This means different things to different people. For the older crowd (ie people with more money to spend on games) life is stressful enough and playing a challenging game might bring about unwanted stress. MMOs for a lot of people are a break from real life and all its stresses. For others, finding success in a game helps them cope with things in life. Something that helps us cope with bad things is a good thing and it's something we will want to do more of

2. The more people involved, the lower the average IQ is (this idea is from Hitler). I'm not a nazi but this idea is true. There are different ways a game can be challenging. One of them being complex. If it's challenging because it's complex then the masses will find something simpler to understand. If something is simple and challenging, then see point 1

Quizzical

Tiamat64 said:

I've noticed from playing twitch MMOs like Elsword and Lunia that an MMO based at least in part around difficulty becomes impossible to balance.  This is because those who are skilled at gameplay acquire loot and exp much faster than those who are not skilled at gameplay.  In Elsword's case, this difficulty could be gotten around via the pay-to-win aspect (mostly via gear upgrading) if you had the cash, which was probably intentional, but in Lunia's case where the cash shop only helped a little instead of a lot like Elsword, it eventually led to an insanely drastic gap between who could actually play the end game raids at all, to the point where people started keeping lists and only sticking to other party members they knew were insanely skilled at the game (gear checking was worthless compared to gameplay skill, so the only way to do this was to play with others yourself and keep tabs on who sucked and who was awesome).

While a game based around a community of people keeping track of who's actually good at playing the game might sound kinda cool in some respects, it's not so cool to those lesser skilled people who would get left out of everything, and it's not so cool for the company's bottom line either, which is why Lunia went out of business (despite a last minute ditch attempt to make a lot of the game easier in the end) while Elsword, where you can at least get around the game's difficulty by giving the company tons of money, did not.

And I'm pretty sure most of you people don't want a game based around buying your way through the difficulty.

Those are the most extreme ends of the spectrum of skill-based gaming, I think.  Most MMOs aren't that twitch as either Elsword or Lunia, but it's a good example of how difficulty in general can affect an MMO and lead to the ostracization of some people.  ....or encourage the company to heavily monetize gear upgrading like crazy.

Elsword has difficulty?  I spent quite a bit of time soloing at 4-man difficulty--not through the queue so that I wouldn't get the incomplete group bonuses--trying to get a challenge.  Full groups just steamroll through everything and people hardly ever die outside of a few particular spots.

Quizzical

Spiral Knights was challenging, though one might argue that it's not an MMO.  Not very many people could reliably clear a tier 3 danger room without dying.

Distopia

gervaise1 said:

First: do they? I don't believe peoples' desires have changed.

As @maskedweasel said though it is harder to do "challenging". Hence as @Aori said when have they ever been hard? And as @Kajidourden said "challenging" is not the same as punishing.

Padding is no fun; in a book or in a film. Same goes for timesinks in a game.

Early days there were fewer choices; today there are lots. Early online games also offered an opportunity to "connect" with other people; today with Teamspeak and <<insert your choice of social messaging app>> who needs online games to connect?

Which means that games today have to deliver at the fundamental level. They have to entertain. And when they cease to be entertaining people will move on.

You could ask why people want to drive everywhere when once they thought nothing of a 3/10/20 mile/km walk? Answer: they had no choice. Same deal today. Peoples needs and desires (imo) haven'tchanged but the environment in which games operate today has.

Sure there are people who want "easy" experiences. People say that like it's a bad thing. MMOs have always been a mix of easy as well as "harder" content. Hence generic mobs and heroic mobs. Games in general have for decades,hence easy and hard modes... Do people want it even easier? Devs seem to think so hence the new story modes that pretty much make it a faceroll to just get to the story bits. TES games have a very easy setting, as did games like MK... 


Gamers come in all flavors.